page_title: Zagros Mountains
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Zagros Mountains / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Location map of the Wezmeh Cave, A Neanderthal site in the Iranian Zagros Mountains
context_page_description: The Zagros Mountains are a long mountain range in Iran, Iraq and southeastern Turkey. This mountain range has a total length of 1,600 km. The Zagros mountain range begins in northwestern Iran and roughly follows Iran's western border, while covering much of southeastern Turkey and northeastern Iraq. From this border region, the range roughly follows Iran's coast on the Persian Gulf. It spans the whole length of the western and southwestern Iranian plateau, ending at the Strait of Hormuz. The highest point is Mount Dena, at 4,409 metres.
context_section_description: The Zagros Mountains were occupied by early humans since the Lower Paleolithic Period. The earliest human fossils discovered in Zagros belongs to Neanderthals and come from Shanidar Cave, Bisitun Cave, and Wezmeh Cave. The remains of ten Neanderthals, dating from around 65,000-35,000 years ago, have been found in the Shanidar Cave. The cave also contains two later "proto-Neolithic" cemeteries, one of which dates back about 10,600 years and contains 35 individuals. Coon who excavated Bisitun Cave described two hominid remains from the site, a maxilliary upper incisor and a radius shaft fragment, both from a Layer designated F+. These remains were listed but never described fully for the palaeontological community. When they were finally reexamined four decades later, the incisor was found to be of bovine, rather than hominid origin. The radius fragment was found to show Neanderthal affinities, as it is mediolaterally expanded at the interosseus crest. Metrically, it is outside the range of variation of early anatomically modern humans, but in the range of Neanderthals and early Upper Paleolithic humans.
  The radius fragment also showed signs of scavenging carnivores or rodents, such as jackal and fox, the remains of which were also found at the site.
  Wezmeh Child or Wezmeh 1 represented by an isolated unerupted human maxillary right premolar tooth (P3 or possibly P4) of an individual between 6–10 years old. Evidence from later Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic occupations come from Yafteh Cave, Kaldar Cave near Khoramabad, and Warwasi, Malaverd near Kermanshah, Kenacheh Cave in Kurdistan, Boof Cave in Fars and a number of other caves and rock shelters.  
  Signs of early agriculture date back as far as 9000 BC in the foothills of the mountains. Some settlements later grew into cities, eventually named Anshan and Susa; Jarmo is one archaeological site in this area. Some of the earliest evidence of wine production has been discovered in the mountains; both the settlements of Hajji Firuz Tepe and Godin Tepe have given evidence of wine storage dating between 3500 and 5400 BC.
  During early ancient times, the Zagros was the home of peoples such as the ancestors of the  Sumerians and, later, the Kassites, Guti, Elamites and Mitanni, who periodically invaded the Sumerian and/or Akkadian cities of Mesopotamia. The mountains create a geographic barrier between the Mesopotamian Plain, which is in Iraq, and the Iranian Plateau. A small archive of clay tablets detailing the complex interactions of these groups in the early second millennium BC has been found at Tell Shemshara along the Little Zab. Tell Bazmusian, near Shemshara, was occupied between 5000 BCE and 800 CE, although not continuously.
caption: Location map of the Wezmeh Cave in the range of Neanderthals
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